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Notes on the GOP Debate

RUSH: I'm having a lot of people tell me that after they found the debate last night -- it was on Bloomberg, that's channel 353 on DirecTV, it kinda ticked me off it wasn't in HD. I almost didn't watch it 'cause it wasn't in HD. None of this standard definition stuff for me anymore. Biggest obstacle was watching it in standard definition. Felt like I had rabbit ears back in those days. Anyway, a lot of people think it was the best Republican debate so far, format, roundtable, candidates questioning each other. I thought there was something really missing last night, something of glaring proportion that did not happen last night, and for the life of me, I do not understand why it did not happen.

By the way, folks, hi. How are you? Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, sitting here at the Limbaugh Institute. Of course, as long as I'm here, doesn't matter where "here" is. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.

Yesterday, maybe it was the day before when it actually happened, but we got the news yesterday that the White House had leaked to Michael Isikoff that Romney's health care advisors had been brought to the White House, they eagerly went to the White House, they participated in meetings with Obama people to help them strategize the implementation of Obamacare. And in one of those meetings Obama was present himself. Romney's health care advisors telling Obama's people how to do it. Romney didn't get hit on that at all last night. I was waiting for that all night long and I didn't see that happen, and if I didn't see it happen, it didn't happen. It did not happen.

I have maybe a little bit different take. Romney probably chalks up as the winner because he didn't lose it. But I'll go through the jot note summary that I made in just a second as I was watching the debate.

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RUSH: Here's what's so frustrating to me about this debate last night. Well, not so much the debate. What's upsetting to me is the fait accompli that's attaching itself to Romney. It's way too soon for that to happen, and it's way too soon for everybody to start thinking this is over.

I saw some polling data, 70% of Republicans are not supportive of Romney right now. I think the Republican base, the conservative base that's the majority in this country is so far ahead of the leaders of the Republican establishment and the inside-the-Beltway media people. That debate last night, you might have thought it was the best, but if we were able to take a poll here, I'm gonna tell you that the base, the Republican base is not happy with that debate last night at all because it didn't change anything. It didn't change anything. The Republican base doesn't want Romney. The Republican base doesn't want Romney. Pure and simple. I don't know how many people in the Republican establishment are actually aware of that, or that even care. (interruption) What? (big sigh) You gotta stop looking at stuff this way.

Ugh. (long sigh) You have to stop. No, I can't afford to look at it that way. I do not watch those debates to hear my words echoed by anyone. Snerdley is telling me that we know who listens to my show based on what was said in the debate last night with all these people jumping on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. It was gratifying. I must say. It was Michele Bachmann that got this whole thing started. Michele Bachmann got the whole thing started. You know, Charlie Rose, he handles the roundtable. Charlie Rose likes tables. Charlie Rose likes chairs. Charlie Rose likes chairs that can be converted to tables. Strong chairs? Charlie Rose likes that. It's clear. He's mastered the roundtable format. He's been doing it a long time.

But he and what's-her-face, Karen Tumulty, it was clear with some of the answers they had no idea what was being said. When the whole subject of the housing crisis came up and Michele Bachmann identified and then Newt backed her up, "Look, we got the Community Redevelopment Act. We've got Clinton. We have got Obama. We've got the Democrat Party and the federal government demanding that these banks make loans to people that couldn't pay 'em back," you could just see on the faces of Charlie Rose and Karen Tumulty, they had no idea what she was talking about. They were just clueless. The questions that we got from those members of the media were pure formulaic. There was nothing creative or ingenious about them, nothing new.

Every question came from the Democrat media template or narrative, and that's another thing I didn't like about it. We can't do anything about it. If we're gonna agree to go on places like CNN and Bloomberg to do debates, we're gonna have to deal with the people that show up asking the questions. They are mind-numbed robots of the left -- and it was clear in a number of answers, not just the housing scandal, but in a number of answers these people were clueless as to what was being said. It looked like they were talking to Martians. Judging from the look on his face... You know, I know Charlie Rose. I've been on his show a number of times. Not in the last 19 years, but... (laughing) Ahem.

I like Charlie, but it was obvious that he had no idea. He had no idea what was being said. The subprime mortgage crisis, as far as these people are concerned, was directly and solely the fault of the big banks. We got the obligatory question: "Are you shocked that not one of those people has been put in jail?" That's right off of some kook fringe blog on the left. That's what they think is mainstream. But, anyway, it is what it was. You have to say that Romney did not fail, so as a result you'd have to say as the front-runner, he maintained that position. I thought, "Rick Perry, where's the energy?" I really did. Let me take a break and I'll share with you the notes that I jotted as this thing happened. That's the best way to do this. I'll just share with you my stream of consciousness here, such as "Charlie Rose likes tables and chairs, chairs that can be converted to tables."

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RUSH: Rick Perry managed to make himself disappear last night like he was an A-list magician in Las Vegas, in the debate. I don't know if he is finished after last night, but I like his basic message. I like Perry's basic message. But I don't know that he knows yet how to run for president, run for the office of president.

He was better in some ways than previous debates, but I thought he was just too passive last night. I know maybe the thinking is, "Let's be calm and cool and collected and exude an aura of confidence, an aura of 'I belong here,'" but there needs to be some energy. Perry needed to dominate last night. Somebody needed to hit Mitt Romney and the fact that his advisors show up at the White House on three different occasions to advise Obama's people on implementing Obamacare. I thought it would be a natural for Perry to do that, or for Newt, or any of them, Herman Cain. It did not happen. He needed to dominate, and he didn't dominate last night. Now, I don't know what it is.

The story is he's never done well in debates, that the format is not something that is conducive to him, and I understand that. Some people do better in various public settings than others do. Now, Romney, if it's possible to forget Romneycare for a minute, he's been doing this enough that he performs well in these debates every time out. I think that's one of the reasons why he's solidified his front-runner status. He gets more face-time than Newt or Herman Cain, but when he does get his chances he handles them very well with the exception of Romneycare. He just can't talk himself out of that. It trips him up every time it comes up because he's trying to avoid telling the truth about it, and that's always gonna get you in trouble, and it always does him.

Now if he's the nominee, Romneycare is not going to get a pass. It is going to be the bludgeon, it's gonna be the bludgeon that the Democrats use. Romney you can say is gonna repeal Obamacare all he wants, but then they come back and say, "Yeah, well, you helped us implement it. It's identical. We took your plan in Massachusetts and we built on it for Obamacare. Now you want to repeal ours but you don't want to repeal yours when they're identical?" So that's a big problem for the general election down the road, but Romney did not hurt himself. And this is the last time I'll mention it, but I can't believe not one person on that panel brought up Romney's people meeting with Obama's people to help them implement Obamacare. I'm just still shocked about that.

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RUSH: One of the criticisms of Rick Perry is that he talks about Texas too much, what he did in Texas. Okay, fine. Let's move on. One of the things that Perry does in the debates is say, like he did last night: The state invested in some energy programs, and we created (what was it?) fifty-some-odd thousand jobs with it -- and people were complaining! It was another typical, mind-numbed, brainless attempt at an attack by these debate moderators. Okay, so they know that everybody's hitting Obama on Solyndra. Now, what's Solyndra? Solyndra is a non-business. Solar energy panels. There is no industry there; there's no business there. Obama continues to fund it. Yet another solar company, this one run by the son of California congressman George Miller -- and guess what?

They're gonna build their solar panels in Mexico! Now, I thought the purpose of the government picking winners and losers in funding, subsidizing businesses, was to create American jobs. Isn't that what Obama's talking about, green jobs, creating all these brand-new jobs, blah, blah, blah? Okay, we're gonna pay over a billion dollars to a solar energy company that's gonna be operating out of Mexico -- and it's "crony" because it's the son of George Miller, the far-leftist member of Congress from Northern California. So here comes Karen Tumulty at Rick Perry, and she thinks she's got a gotcha question. (snidely) "Well, for all your talk about what Obama's doing, didn't you do the same thing? Didn't you have some supporters of yours where you were funding some energy projects in Texas, and if so what is the difference?" And Perry didn't nail it.

The difference is, "Yeah, I was investing in standard energy businesses that work! We were investing in oil. We were investing in natural gas. We were stimulating the production of domestic energy in Texas that satisfies the wants and needs and desires of the American people. We weren't investing in something that doesn't exist: The solar industry." It's the inability to make that point... I understand deer in the headlights, and I know, folks, one of the things I hated about being on television... I must be honest with you here in the process of being fair. One of the things I hated about being on TV that never happens to me on radio: At the end of every 22 minute TV show -- even the ones I thought I had nailed, even the ones I thought they were as good as they could be -- I got nothing but complaints of what I shoulda said.

Remember those days, Snerdley? I'm talking about from the audience. "What you shoulda said..." and I thought I had nailed it. Now, nobody after a radio show has ever told me, "You know, what you shoulda said was..." I don't know "never," but I mean times that it happens are so infrequent. It happened every day on television. So I understand how easy it is to watch somebody on television and think that they blew it, because everybody thought that about me every night when I had my TV show, and it's one of the many reasons I hate televison. Even now if I do a guest appearance on TV, the next day I hear about what I shoulda said. "That was good, Rush, but, you know, you really forgot that X." (sigh) All right, so I'm sitting there watching, and Karen Tumulty thinks that she's got this gotcha.

All Perry has to say is, "I don't make any apologies for what I did. We were growing the oil and natural gas industry," and we were creating 56,000 permanent jobs in the process, as opposed to Obama investing in a business that doesn't exist where the money is coming back to him in the form of campaign contributions and a slush fund." Where's the answer? Instead he got all defensive and said, "Well, it's a states rights issue." This is what he does. "Well, it's different. States should have the right to do this kind of thing." Now, the reason I bring this up is because I know that's what Romney's gonna do. He's done it, in fact, but I know that's what he's gonna do when he gets hit on Romneycare. It's he's gonna say it's okay to do things like Romney at the state level.

To which... I hate to say this. To which the reply is, "Fine, but it didn't stay at the state level because you sent your advisors to the White House to tell Obama how to do the same thing nationally!" This is a real vulnerability that need not exist in running against Obama. There's a poll out today that Cain, Romney, and Perry all beat Obama right now. In a poll. Which is meaningless. Unless the election's tomorrow. But it still is an indication. We'll take everything we can get. But this Romneycare is gonna be an albatross, and they're gonna be able to bludgeon him with it. I know what he's gonna do. He'll say, "Well, it's okay to experiment, laboratory type things in the states. That's what they're for." (sigh) But still, we don't have to have a campaign with that kind of an albatross around our neck, but we're gonna have it if Romney is the the nominee.

Now, here's what Perry said. "Well, I don't think the federal government should be involved in that type of investment," meaning doing subsidizing energy programs, period. "If states want to choose to do that, I think that's fine for states to do that." Now, the question that Perry was asked was about signing off on an emerging technology fund. It was a $14 billion emergency technology fund approved by the Texas legislature, which is another thing that hasn't happened -- and he pointed that out. He did say, "The Texas legislature had to approve of everything I was doing.

The US Congress has not approved a thing with Obama and Solyndra. This is one of the many things that are off the books." But still the glaring difference is (snorts) that Perry was not investing in a nonexistent business. Namby pansy, wimpish green energy! You know, green energy is the province of sissies. It doesn't exist. In fact, it doesn't exist so much it destroys economies. Look at Spain. I'm just saying. It's a long story, a long way of getting to the point that Romney's gonna try to explain Romneycare away by saying, "Well, it's a states rights issue. I did what I want here," and the fact that he sent his advisors to the Oval Orifice to help Obama put his health care plan kinda negates this effort to keep it a state issue. Frankly, it is why the news about Romney's staff helping Obama with Obamacare is so shocking.

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RUSH: Couple sound bites from the debate. This is what Snerdley loved. This was Michele Bachmann laying the blame, economic problems, housing crisis at the feet of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Karen Tumulty, Washington Post, co-moderator, said, "Congressman Bachmann, three years after the financial meltdown, Main Street continues to suffer. People have lost their jobs, they've lost their homes, they've lost their faith in the future, but Wall Street's thriving. The banks not only got bailed out by the government they made huge profits and they paid themselves huge bonus. Do you think it's right that no Wall Street executives have gone to jail for the damage?" What? I heard that question, almost turned it off, what's the point of watching this? It's just another left-wing media template full of questions that are not gonna advance the ball whatsoever. Who's out there saying Wall Street execs need to go to jail except the far-left fringe blogs? So they get to determine the questions that are asked. Anyway, here's how Bachmann answered this infantile question.

BACHMANN: It was Congressman Barney Frank and also Senator Chris Dodd that continued to push government directed housing goals. They pushed the banks to meet these rules, and it began with Freddie and Fannie. If you look at these secondary mortgage companies, which the federal government is essentially backing 100%, they put American mortgages in a very difficult place. We had artificially low interest rates, Freddie and Fannie were the center of the universe on the mortgage meltdown, and we had lending standards lowered for the first time in American history. The fault goes back to the federal government, and that's what's wrong with Dodd-Frank. Dodd-Frank institutionalized all of these problems.

RUSH: That's right on the money! And she said that in 44 seconds. Brevity is the soul of wit. Bang, bang, get in, get it, and get out, and she did. And the look on Karen Tumulty's face was one of total vacancy, deer in the headlights. She had no idea what Michele Bachmann was talking about. I don't remember if there was a follow-up. I think there probably was to try to keep it on the subject that Tumulty wanted it on. (imitating Tumulty) "What about the Wall Street bankers, don't you think they should have gone to jail?" Regardless what she had said, it's just puerile, just abject infantile, but at least Bachmann got it right, just nailed it.

It's always fascinating; these media people, supposedly the smartest among us, the most curious. They're journalists. It's their job to find out what's going on and tell us, and they're not anything of the sort. They are just robots. They are the mind-numbed robots. So later on Karen Tumulty again talking to Newt. "Speaker Gingrich, sounds like Congresswoman Bachmann does not believe Wall Street's to blame for the financial --" Really? What's your first clue there, Karen? "You've said that the current protests on Wall Street are, in your words, the natural product of Obama's class warfare. Does this mean that these people that are out there protesting on Wall Street and across the country have no grievance whatsoever?"

GINGRICH: I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be angry. But let's be clear who put the fix in. The fix was put in by the federal government, and if you want to put people in jail, I want to second what Michelle said, you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and let's look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment, and the politicians who put this country in trouble.

ROSE: Clearly, you're not saying they should go to jail?

GINGRICH: Well, in Chris Dodd's case, go back and look at the Countrywide deals. Barney Frank's case, go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at Freddie Mac.

RUSH: (imitating Rose) "Clearly, clearly --" that's Charlie Rose "-- clearly, clearly you're not saying they should go to jail?" Why the hell not? If Wall Street people who were simply following federal directives ought to go to jail, why not the people issuing the orders. Why not? What is so shocking and unacceptable about the premise that members of Congress would go to jail? They're not royalty, Charlie. They're not infallible. They're goofs. They are irresponsible. They would never spend their own money the way they spend ours. I don't care about good intentions and big-heartedness and all that.

The subprime mortgage mess is 90% of the reason we are in the mess that we're in across our economy, and the subprime mortgage mess was a directive of the federal government. Newt Gingrich and Bachmann are exactly right. (imitating Rose) "Clearly, you're not saying they should go to jail?" Well, look at Chris Dodd and the phony deals he had with Angelo over at Countrywide and Barney's in there skin deep, however deep you want to say with the Fannie and Freddie people. See how easy it is? It's just a natural, why, it's like water coming out of a faucet. Somebody on Wall Street ought to be in jail right now. "But clearly you're not saying that Barney Frank (muttering) clearly, clearly you're not." No, Charlie, we are. Jeez.

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RUSH: Herman Cain. Herman Cain, folks, consistently clear. Herman Cain is very likable, and more importantly, Herman Cain is unflappable; he never hurts himself. (interruption) When did he hurt himself? Oh, the Federal Reserve thing. Well, nobody knows enough about the Federal Reserve to hurt him. I guarantee that you Cain came across last night a little weak on that but, you know, he was not flappable. You couldn't get him off the 999 thing even when somebody said to him it sounds like the price of one of your pizzas. Huntsman did that, that was rare, Huntsman actually showing that blood flows.BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Well, Snerdley, you'll be interested to know that Business Insider just posted a story saying that Herman Cain has lost the Tea Party. Herman Cain lost the Tea Party last night when he said he would have hired Greenspan, when he said that he liked Greenspan at the Fed. Yeah, he said he would appoint a Fed chairman like Greenspan. So Business Insider, some guy named Zeke Miller, says it's over. So, okay, that's it. I guess Herman Cain's finished. Business Insider says he lost the Tea Party last night. There's one thing. Rick Santorum did say, "Let me ask the audience: How many of you support this 999 thing?" Zilch, zero, nada. Now, the 999 plan is 9% sales tax, 9% flat tax/FairTax, and 9% something else."

And every one of those people up on the stage that talked about it said, "Yeah, that 9%'s gonna be 20% in two years." Now, something here about this needs to be said. If you're gonna try to take Herman Cain's 999 plan and discard it, disqualify it because, "Well, that 9% tax rate..." Forget the sales tax, a lot of people don't want that, but any 9% tax rate's gonna be 20% in two years. Well, isn't any? If somebody proposes a FairTax at say 15%, can't anybody say, "Well, no, can't go for that! That 15%'s gonna be 20% in six months." If that's how we're gonna refute these plans, there's none that can ever be implemented because they'll never stay at the percentage -- and Herman said, "No, it's not gonna happen 'cause I'm gonna require two-thirds vote of Congress to raise the tax above 999." Of course that begs the question (chuckling), "Well, how are you gonna pass that requirement of two-thirds?

"Is Congress gonna readily give up their power of social architecture that they have with the tax code?" But stop and think about this. Here's a Business Insider guy saying Herman Cain's finished because of a single issue, and it's Alan Greenspan. If you're able to point to somebody like Greenspan, that's it! Okay, forget Herman Cain. Next up. (laughing) I just loooove the way this works. (interruption) Well, he was. Newt Gingrich was the smartest guy in the room. Newt has follow-up, I didn't know I had a follow-up here, it was in the next page, but grab 17. We'll play these two back-to-back. Play 17 again. This is Newt talking about, "Well, maybe Barney Frank and Chris Dodd need to go to jail."

GINGRICH: I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be angry. But let's be clear who put the fix in. The fix was put in by the federal government, and if you want to put people in jail, I want to second what Michelle said, you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and let's look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment, and the politicians who put this country in trouble.

ROSE: Clearly you're not saying they should go to jail?

GINGRICH: Well, in Chris Dodd's case, go back and look at the Countrywide deals. Barney Frank's case, go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at Freddie Mac.

Why is it so clear that anybody on Wall Street ought to go to jail? Somebody explain this to me. "Clearly you're not saying they should go to jail." Then Newt followed up. He didn't stop. He said this.

GINGRICH: Everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is weakening this country and ought to start with Bernanke, who has still not been exposed to the hundreds of billions of dollars...

AUDIENCE: (applause)

GINGRICH: I want to repeat this. Barney has in secret spent hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out one group and not bailing out another group. I don't see anybody in the news media demanding the kind of transparency at the Fed that you would demand of every other aspect of the federal government, and I think it is corrupt and it is wrong for one man to have that kind of secret power.

RUSH: And the audience loved it. They went nuts. So he clearly nailed 'em. Did you know that Karen Tumulty has an MBA from Harvard? Karen Tumulty, who was on the moderator panel last night has an MBA, a Master of Business Administration, from Harvard University. Now, if there was ever anything that proved the worthlessness of one of those, it's that bit of news. (sigh) I have some e-mails from people saying, "You know, you need to tone it down today. You're too revved up about these media people, 'cause these media people are actually asking questions that make our people look good. Newt, Michele Bachmann, they look great answering those questions. Those gotcha questions, you know, Rush, they actually end up working."

I understand that. That's not what peeves me. What peeves me, folks, is the substance and the reality of this. We are living in a destroyed economy for very learnable reasons -- very discernible reasons, inarguable reasons. It has been years since the evidence was procured. We had the authorette of a book on this program, Gretchen Morgenson from the New York Times, who exposed the whole thing. We interviewed her in the Limbaugh Letter. Everybody in that town knows what happened. Everybody in that town, including Karen Tumulty, knows what went on. They know it was Fannie and Freddie and they know it was the federal government imposing these rules on the lenders. They know it, and what infuriates me is that they continue with the lie.

They continue with the myth, for the express purpose of try to trip up these Republicans and make 'em look like cold-hearted, uncaring-about-people Republican candidates who "only want to support the rich." That's what infuriates me. That's why I love Newt's answer to this, and it's why I like Bachmann's answer. But the truth is not enough. Because after this debate's over, these people in the media continue to spread this lie -- and they continue the construct that Republicans are a bunch of fringe kooks who don't care about people. That's what irritates me about it is that they know. Now, I know I said Karen Tumulty looked like she had a blank stare on her face, and she did, and it is arguable whether she knew. But I'm telling you: It's not a secret in that town what went on, because the people that were responsible for it had gotten rich!

They have profited from it, personally. Everybody knows what went on. Everybody knows what the subprime mortgage business was. Everybody knows that it was the federal government, under the aegis of "affordable housing" and "equality" and making sure everybody had a home. You know how else they know? They played a clip from 2004 last night in that debate of George W. Bush praising the whole concept of home ownership. They're trying to shift the whole notion that it was Bush that was behind this! They know what went on. They know what goes on here. This "gotcha" business, frankly, if the right people are answering the questions, yeah, you can turn it into a positive -- for the moment.

But the entire Washington DC elite, ruling elite establishment continues to live, propped up by lie after lie after lie, and treat the people who are trying to get to the bottom of this and fix the problems that we face as the kooks and as the extremists, as the haters and all of this. Look, I know that this is the rule, and I know this is what goes on. I'm the one that defined it. It's still there are some days it ticks me off, just as it ticks me off that everybody knows in their heart that Obama is purposely doing what he's doing. Everybody knows it and even people on our side don't have the guts to say so, and all we're talking about here is the American people and their lives being destroyed! That's all we're talking about, which to me is a major, big thing.

But what seems to be of paramount importance here is propping up the phony ruling elite status in New York and Washington rather than actually dealing with fixing this mess for the benefit of the country and for the benefit of the American people, which they all claim to be doing, but none of them are. So that's what irritates me about it. I know that the guys like Newt looked great answering the question, Michele Bachmann looked great answering the question. The very idea the question is still asked just irritates me. We're not gonna get to the bottom of this and we're not gonna turn this around and fix it as long as we continue to live in a lie, as long as the propaganda that's promulgated here is not checked, countered, and done away with.

By the way, in 2008 (a little irony for you from Karen Tumulty) during the presidential campaign, Karen Tumulty accused McCain's campaign of playing the race card for a television ad which criticized the connections between Senator Obama and Franklin Raines -- who was the former CEO of Fannie Mae, who was one of the people who actually got nailed, who got caught in some of the shenanigans going on over there. So McCain runs an ad connecting Obama to Raines, and she does a story (I think she's at TIME Magazine at the time) accusing the McCain campaign of playing the race card. It's all about protecting Obama -- and this from the media that loved McCain. So the hypocrisy here is what grates on me now and then.

CALLER: Okay, I've got a comment. Perry did ask Romney about his aides visiting Obama on the health care issue, and he handled that question very well, as he handled Huntsman's question about him tearing down companies. I think there is only three people that have a chance of winning the election, and it's Romney, Cain, and Gingrich. I could tear down 999 just by saying I'm on Social Security and already pay 9% sales tax. He's gonna add 9% on my 30 grand a year Social Security and another 9% sales tax. The other one is Gingrich. And you made a comment some time ago about what could have been. My comment is you have a tremendous influence on this nomination, and according to Reagan's Eleventh Commandment, I kind of wish you'd give Romney a little break. He's been vetted. He's the only one that's really been vetted so far, and he's handled it quite adroitly. I don't want to end up with another John McCain. Gingrich and Cain haven't really been vetted like Romney. Okay, that's what I wanted to say. I appreciate your listening to me.

RUSH: Well, I'm glad you called. Just one small disagreement. Rick Perry asked Romney about remarks made by a guy named Glenn Hubbard, who was Romney's economic advisor that said Obamacare and Romneycare were the same thing. But I don't think Romney was hit up by anybody for the fact that his advisors actually went to the Oval Office for three meetings, one of which was attended by Obama to help them implement Obamacare. And even if Perry brought this up, it was not nearly as forceful, and nobody else did, either. I was expecting it. I'm thinking that all the rest of these people on the panel are there because they still think they've got a shot at this thing. And whenever there is a huge vulnerability that's been exposed about the front-runner you go for it, and nobody did. That's something that surprised me.

So maybe the lower tier doesn't think they really have a chance and they don't want to bloody Romney up too much. That's the only other explanation. I mean the conventional wisdom is this is over, that nobody can stop Romney, he's got the money, nobody else has anywhere near the amount of money, it's inevitable. That's what is being put out there, it's inevitable. I had people writing the same thing in e-mail, "Rush, give it up, it's over, it's Romney, everybody knows, it's just a fait accompli. Nobody can get close to him. He's got the money, he's got all the years of experience, it's who the bigwigs want, that's it. It's over."

Do you realize that Romney believes in manmade global warming? As governor of Massachusetts he took positions and endorsed policies that would promote the whole concept of manmade global warming. Now, I happen to know it's a hoax. I happen to know that there's no such thing as manmade global warming, not as an explanation for climate change. And that's just one thing. Sorry, folks, I see a great opportunity here. We have a liberal socialist president who is as discredited as one is ever going to be. We have circumstances that are dire. The country needs to be turned around if we're gonna preserve.

You know what? I could check out. I really could. I don't need to work anymore. I could get rid of a lot of grief, I could get rid of a lot of distractions, just punt. But it matters too much to me. When I see these yokels marching down on Wall Street, the so-called future of the country, I get scared. I know they're small in number, but I know that there a lot of people that think like that, they've been educated this way. They're gonna have to be beaten, defeated. And everybody who is responsible for them thinking what they think is going to have to be dealt with at some point if this is gonna be turned around, the 80 years of the slow creep of socialism in this country. And the answer to it is not pabulum.

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RUSH: Mark in York, Pennsylvania. Hi, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Sir, thanks for having me on.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: Hey, I'm calling about in regards to Herman Cain. You know, a quote I often think of is, "Leadership is action, not position," and so far I think out of all of them -- you know, everyone always says Romney. Like you were saying, you know, he's the front-runner, but I don't think people are even focused on him anymore, and I don't even know where they're getting the information because everyone I've talked to it's everyone except Romney because maybe he's just a shoo-in. But right now I think Herman Cain is definitely gaining ground. Before no one really knew who he was and now that the media is portraying him, you know, as someone who you want to listen to. I think that's where he's getting a lot of support because first off, when he is interviewed, he is answering the question with "yes" or "no." You know, he's not beating around it -- and like the people who supported Chris Christie, a lot of them said they supported him because he said what was on his mind, and I think that's what people like about Herman Cain; he tells you how it is.

RUSH: Well, there's no question about that. I think one of the things that Republican voters are eager for is straight talk, not mealy-mouthed mushmouth or mishmash but somebody willing to take it to the opposition the way the voters feel it. So any candidate that does that is going to resonate. I think that's one of the reasons Newt is bubbling back up -- he's just taking it right to them -- and I think you're right about Herman Cain, he's taking it right to them. And when they try to discredit his little 999 plan he's unflappable. He just tells 'em. Like this poor Bloomberg woman last night that, "Well, we have this independent analysis that says your 999 plan is $200,000 short." Cain said, "Well, all I had to say about that is that your analysts are just wrong," and the place erupted! Here, let's go to sound bite number 19. Jon Huntsman. Charlie Rose asked him, "When you mentioned the flat tax, does that mean that you look with some favor about Herman Cain's 999 plan?"

HUNTSMAN: I think it's a catchy phrase. In fact, I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard about it.

TUMULTY: (cackling)

RUSH: Okay, Herman Cain was not at all taken off his game by that.

CAIN: 999 will pass, and it is not "the price of a pizza," because it has been well studied and well developed. It starts with, unlike your proposals, throwing out the current tax code. Continuing to pivot off the current tax code is not gonna boost this economy. This is why we developed 999: 9% corporate business flat tax, 9% personal income flat tax, and a 9% national sales tax. And it will pass, Senator, (sic) because the American people want it to pass. It didn't come off a pizza box, no. It was well studied and well developed.

RUSH: So he's unflappable. I don't know how else to describe it. Where can you buy a pizza for 9.99? That's a slice, right, not a pizza? A slice is 9.99. (interruption) Really, they do have 9.99? Huntsman was out of touch. I don't know where you can get a pizza for 9.99. (interruption) Some are even cheaper on Tuesday night than 9.99? Wow. Cool. And Michele Bachmann said, "You know, I don't know, Herman Cain, take your 999 plan and you turn it upside down and, you know, Herman, the devil's in the details;" and audience loved that, too. That was a great comeback.